


What Can You Say?

by L122YTorch (orphan_account)



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 17:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3858865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/L122YTorch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His presence was so consuming that being around him was like remaining in orbit around a planet. His gravity pulled at her, yet she could never get quite close enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Can You Say?

Infuriating was the best word she could find to describe him. He was an enigma wrapped in a puzzle lost in a maze and capped with a fedora. 

His presence was so consuming that being around him was like remaining in orbit around a planet. His gravity pulled at her, yet she could never get quite close enough.

“Nick’s Pizza” flashed on her phone that sat vibrating on the center console next to her. But what was the point in answering? 

They were swept up in an unending tango. He was always one step ahead of her, she was out of breath from trying to keep up. Next to him she felt so insignificant, inexperienced…young.

After fighting so hard for so long to prove herself, if there was one thing she hated feeling - it was young.

Somewhere along the way, in the midst of catching criminals and saving the world from terrorist attacks, she missed it…she failed to recognize the reverence with which he looked at her, the esteem in which he held her.

Around her, he felt old. It was easy to marvel at the brilliance that was Elizabeth Keen, and what made it even more satisfying was the fact that she herself didn’t see it. 

When he’s with her, he has his youth, he has his relevance, he feels human again. She gives a piece of his soul back to him that he would otherwise sorely miss. Which is exactly why he couldn’t tell her.

The truth was not an option. 

So when she sat across from him, holding the picture frame in her hand, her blue eyes searching his for answers, he kept his lips drawn shut. She pleaded. That’s what nearly broke him - the vulnerability in her voice, the desperation on her face. 

But he couldn’t lose her…not now…not ever.

“Tell me,” she pressed.

His tongue squirmed in his mouth, and he had to turn his words over in his mind before he let them slip loose.

“No Lizzie…” 

Dismay flashed across her features. She stood and walked to the door, telling him that she would find out either way. She put the picture down on the bookcase before leaving.

Once she left, he walked towards it slowly and took it in his hand. He thought it ironic that she posited that he murdered her father because he was in love with her mother, when it was quite the opposite. He hated her mother. She was brutal, merciless and ice cold - just another target he was told to remove.

But Lizzie was innocent. She was pure and precious, untainted by her parents. She deserved to live, to have a new life, a better one. And in trying to give her one, he had inadvertently dragged her from her innocence into his murky waters. 

He was relieved when he found out that she was going to be an agent, but it was a selfish relief. This wasn’t the life he wanted for her.

======

That evening he called her, but it went straight to voicemail. He considered leaving a message but had nothing of value to say. He never could say what he wished he could. After all, it was hard to imagine his voice locked in her iPhone saying: Lizzie…please, I want to talk to you. I want to make sure that you stay in my life. I need you.

She was distraught and he knew exactly where she’d go. Just the thought of her with him made his stomach turn.  
He gave it an hour and a half before getting in the town car and venturing out into the rain soaked night.

Sure enough, her car was there, sitting in front of the hovel Tom was currently calling home.

He told Dembe to leave him there, to drive off and leave him to stand in the rain. With reservations, Dembe nodded, and watched in the rearview mirror as Red broke into her car.

Elizabeth emerged from the warehouse, the perfect picture of emotional disarray. She was soaked, staring down as she got out her keys, he wet hair stuck to her face. The car beeped, the door opened, and she plopped into the drivers seat.

Her eyes went wide with alarm as she realized she was not alone. She took in a sharp breath of air, her hand reflexively going to her hip. “Red?!” she shouted. “What the fuck?!”  
He was amused by her display of terror and anger, but was careful not to show it. Of course it would only serve to piss her off more.

“I’m sorry Lizzie,” he said, hands raised, “it was not my intention to scare you.”

“What are you doing?”

“You didn’t answer my call.”

“So you thought it was a good idea to track me down and break into my car?”

He shifted in the passenger seat. “Normally I wouldn’t but…”   
“…but there’s another maniac on the loose that I need to catch, and it just so happens to be in your best interest?” she cut him off.

He looked taken aback, if only for a moment. 

“No. Normally I wouldn’t, but it disturbed me to think of you running to Tom.”   
“You may spy on me, hide the truth from me, my job may depend on you…but you do not get to decide my actions,” she spat, venom dripping from every word.

She put the key in the ignition.

“What would you prefer Red?” she looked over at him with a slicing glare that could halve his soul. “Would you prefer that I run to you when you’re the one causing me pain?”

His face twisted. “I don’t want to cause you pain,” he whispered.

“Then tell me the truth!” she shouted, her words reverberating off the interior of the car. 

“I can’t,” he said, nearly inaudibly.

“And why is that?” 

“Because I can’t lose you,” he said honestly. 

Her lips were parted, her breath held, her eyes sad. “What could you have done?” Liz’s mind flew through a thousand possible scenarios. 

“Why would you lose me? Did you do something awful?”

He didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t even look at her. Instead, his eyes had wandered away from her and remained fixed on some distant point beyond the dashboard. 

“Did you kill my parents?”   
He looked over at her. It wasn’t a snapped up stare, or a look of shock or discovery. He just gradually turned his head until he was facing her. His expression revealed nothing, but the lines on his face looked well-defined. A heavy sadness sat beneath his eyes and he looked exhausted.  
“You can’t keep coming to Tom,” he said, in a hoarse broken voice.

“Why not? Why should it bother you if I come to him?” 

“He’s a liar.”

“So are you.”

His lips parted as air entered his lungs to soften the blow of her words. Slowly, he nodded. Carefully he twisted his body, which wasn’t easy. Pain and consternation flitted across his face.   
He knew he was wading into dangerous waters as his hand rose of it’s own accord and cupped her face. His thumb swiped away teardrops and raindrops alike.   
“Don’t come to him…come to me,” his eyes brushed over hers, sweeping down her cheeks and resting on her lips. There was something in his look, in his touch, that sent electricity jolting through her nerves. 

A moment of loaded silence hung between them.

“I like you like this,” she whispered. 

“Like what?” 

“Vulnerable…like me. On the edge of telling me what you’re really thinking…how you’re really feeling.”

His thumb moved, dragging down the feather-soft skin until it reached her lips. 

“Why should I trust you Raymond? What can you say that will make me hate you less?”  
In the time between the question and the answer, he searched for answers in her porcelain skin, in her glittering eyes, in the soft pink peach of her lips.

“I love you,” he confessed. 

Before she even had time to process what he said, his hand had withdrawn back to his body. His body had disappeared from the car, and he was walking down the street in the rain.


End file.
